fire. Doris, the lead actress, has her purse stolen from her dressing room by an unseen assailant; Mike Brody, the stage manager, reportedly receives a telegram warning him to drop out of the play, signed by John Woodford, and the theater's new owner, Arthur McHugh, also receives a visit from Woodford's ghost. The production continues, and during the final rehearsal, Harvey Carleton inexplicably disappears from the stage during a blackout. Doris spots a mysterious masked figure in a theater box in addition to a man resembling John Woodford, but both disappear. Behind a picture hanging on the stage, a lever is discovered which opens a trap door, where the cast find Harvey incoherent. Arthur and Richard Quayle, another cast member, venture inside, where they discover a tunnel that leads to Doris's dressing room. Arthur has police officers appointed at the theater for the show's opening the following night. During the performance, an electrical wire charged to 400 volts is discovered connected to a candlestick onstage, and Arthur lunges at Richard to prevent him from touching it during the final scene. The unseen masked assailant is discovered hiding inside a grandfather clock onstage, but he drops through a trap door in the floor just after shooting one of the police officers. The assailant scales the theater and throws a dummy resembling John Woodford onto the stage. He then begins swinging from a rope, but is brought back down by a stagehand who cuts it. The masked assailant is discovered to be Brody, who caused Woodford's death via electrocution and had been behind the "hauntings" to prevent the theater from being used. Cast Production Screenplay and filming The film was envisioned as a companion piece to director Leni's earlier The Cat and the Canary, due to that film's great popularity. Universal assigned Leni to the project under the assumption that his previous success would yield significant box-office results. It is based on the 1922 play of the same name by Thomas F. Fallon, which ran for 238 performances from October 24, 1922, until May 1923 at the Klaw Theatre. Fallon's play was in turn based on the story House of Fear by Wadsworth Camp, the father of writer Madeleine L'Engle. Casting Actress Laura La Plante, a former-teenage actress who had previously starred in Leni's The Cat and the Canary, was given top-billing in her role as Doris Terry, though her part in